Friday, April 22, 2016

On Earth Day, Pope Francis calls all ‘to see the world through the eyes of God the Creator’

See the world through the eyes of the Creator, Pope Francis said at the end of his general audience in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday, marking Earth Day.

“I exhort everyone to see the world through the eyes of God the Creator: the earth is an environment to be safeguarded, a garden to be cultivated,” he said.
“The relationship of mankind with nature must not be conducted with greed, manipulation and exploitation, but it must conserve the divine harmony that exists between creatures and Creation within the logic of respect and care, so it can be put to the service of our brothers, also of future generations,” the pope said.
In his universal prayer intention for April, Francis prayed “That people may learn to respect creation and care for it as a gift of God.” On Tuesday, he said on Twitter:

In addition, the Global Catholic Climate Movement has designated April as Care4Creation Month and has produced resources and prayers that communities can use in observing it.

Since its beginning in the U.S. in 1970, Earth Day has grown into the largest worldwide civic observance, according to the Earth Day Network, which estimated more than 1 billion people participate in activities each April 22.

Earth Day was the brainchild of U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, who sought a way to place environmental protection on the national agenda at a time when pollution was compounding. The Democratic senator enlisted college students to organize and coordinate the day. More than 20 million Americans attended Earth Day festivities on April 22, 1970, aligning a broad spectrum of cohorts: Democrats and Republicans, urban and rural communities, labor and business leaders.

The energy that surfaced that day has been credited with spurring the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (1970) and the passage of signature environmental legislation, such as the Clean Air Act (1970), the Clean Water Act (1972) and the Endangered Species Act (1973) -- all initiatives enacted under President Richard Nixon.

Earth Day has since expanded to 192 countries, according to the Earth Day Network.

No comments:

Post a Comment

.

Search This Blog

Find Us on Facebook

Find Us on Twitter

Stewardship of the Environment

We take a leadership role in our communities. As part of the Anglican Communion, we encourage Anglicans to support sustainable environmental practices as individuals in their daily lives and throughout their communities. Click here for more information about our work.

Mandate

The Stewardship of the Environment Committee is responsible to the Anglican Diocese of Montreal for increasing awareness of our inter-dependence with God's environment and through advice, consultation and support, to foster the improvement of our relationship with the environment.

Within this mandate, the Committee has the following long-term objectives: To provide education and support to the Diocese in developing public positions on environmental issues;

To act as a liaison between the Diocese of Montreal and the National Church on environmental issues;

To act as a liaison between the Diocese of Montreal and civil society and religious organizations that deal with environmental issues;

To assist, with similar groups in other denominations and religions in promoting stewardship of the environment at the municipal, provincial and federal levels; To act as a consultative group to the Diocese and to the parishes on environmental issues; and

To act as a resource group to the parishes of the Diocese in promoting actions within the parish that reduces their impact on the physical environment.

Committee Members

Mr. Richard Matthews, is a former warden at St. Philip's Church. He is the chair and social media coordinator for the Stewardship of the Environment Committee. He spearheaded the fossil fuel divestment motion in the Anglican Diocese of Montreal. He also developed and co-facilitated a course called Ecology and Spirituality. Richard is the owner of The Green Market Oracle and the President of Small Business Consulting (SBC). He is a widely published writer and his articles have appeared in dozens of publications including Scientific American. He has contributed to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report on the Green Economy in Action. He lives with his wife and two children in Montreal.

Dr. Brooke Struck is a member of St. Philip's Church where he sings in the choir. His doctoral research in philosophy, undertaken at the University of Guelph, focused on the notion of objectivity in science, and how science is related to other forms of cultural practice. He presently works as a science policy analyst at Science-Metrix, a research-program evaluation firm in Montreal. He has previously worked in science policy analysis for Environment Canada, and also co-founded the Philopolis festival series, which provides a space for discussing the intersection between ideas in academic philosophy and present-day issues of society, culture and politics.

Mr. Jeffrey Mackie is the verger and an active member of Christ Church Cathedral. He is an internationally published writer and also hosts a literary program at CKUT. He is also very active politically and currently sits on the Verdun executive of Projet Montreal. In 2012 he ran provincially for the Green Party of Quebec.